Quote from Haroki:
All excellent points. I would add -
6) if executing killers under our current system deters even 1 innocent person from being murdered, isn't it worth it?
Believe it or not, there are those here who would answer with "no."
One of those, whom I won't name, has said on a previous thread on this subject that even if 200 innocent people are killed by paroled murderers or murderers who have served their prison terms and are then released, it shows that the prisons are doing their role in habilitation.
As far as I am aware, the last major Dept. of Justice study on recidivism by US prisoner parolees was published in June of 2002. It involved meticulous research on over 272,000 prisoners who were released in '94. (approx. 400,000 prisoners were released that year). The study found that: Within 3 years of release, 2.5% of released rapists were rearrested for another rape, and
1.2% of those who had served time for homicide were arrested for a new homicide.
Of further note: Of the 272,111 persons released from prisons in 15 States in 1994, an estimated
67.5% were rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years, 46.9% were reconvicted, and 25.4% resentenced to prison for a new crime.
And: The 67.5% of releases rearrested within 3 years, or 183,675 persons, were charged with 744,480 new crimes, or an average of 4 new crimes each (table 3). Over 100,000 were new charges for a violent crime,
including 2,900 new homicides, 2,400 new kidnapings, 2,400 rapes, 3,200 other sexual assaults, 21,200 robberies, 54,600 assaults, and nearly 13,900 other violent crimes.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/rpr94.pdf
That is the data for within 3 years of release - it would be interesting to see the figures for beyond 3 years.
And the above is just a study of the released prisoners from one year, and only includes ex-criminals who were captured. The real figures of course are higher as the police don't catch all the repeat murderers - far from it, in fact.
Also:
The reentry of serious, high-risk offenders into communities across the country has long been the source of violent crime in the United States. As more than 630,000 offenders are released from prison every year, the problem of their recidivism has become a crisis that affects all parts of a community. Fewer than half of all released offenders stay out of trouble for at least 3 years after their release from prison, and many of these offenders commit serious and/or violent offenses while under parole supervision. This is a significant problem because there were more than 652,000 adult offenders under State parole supervision across the country at yearend 2000.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/reentry/learn.html
Clearly, released murderers have murdered many, many times again. But who do you hear the Liberals lauding and nominating for Nobel Prizes?
Not the thousands of people murdered, but their killers.
Sickening.